Quick line check at this 9-person table. How's my sizing?

Hero: early 30's clean-cut looking guy. Image is probably that I'm aggressive, but if anyone is paying attention, I should appear tight. I have not been limping pre, but I've been opening a fair amount. Bluffed a few times but was never caught, only shown down strong hands.

Villain: mid-to-late 50s guy, loose passive. Have only seen him raise a few times; bets when checked to with top pair on later streets.

Effective stacks: $450 or so

Folds to Hero (UTG+2) with K K. Hero opens to $16. Villain 2 to my left calls, all others fold.

Flop: Q 8 4

Hero bets $22, Villain calls.

Turn: 2

Hero bets $45, Villain calls.

River: 9

Hero bets $60

I would have bet a little more on every street (helps if you put pot size per street), or at least the turn, but it's fine as is. Not many draws, so you do want to keep him in.

The river bet is on the small side. Pot should be like $150 at this point, so get some value.

Sorry guys, was trying to find ways to edit and put in pot size per street, but I can't seem to edit the OP.

Flop: Pot is $35 after rake, my bet is $22.
Turn: Pot is $79, my bet is $45.
River, Pot is $169, my bet is $60.

My rationale behind the smaller river value bet is that I expect him to show up with a lot of Qx type hands here, but I don't know how high of a bet he will call with them. I defaulted to advice in this forum with river bet thinking, which was "consider what you want your opponent to do in response to the bet." I was clearly bet/folding, so I wanted to bet small enough that I lose less when I b/f, and and widen his calling range. It's very possible I lost value though, so I'm here to learn.

turn is a bit too small but river is def. too small.

did he have some kind of physical tell he was looking to fold? were his chips sorted in stacks of 25 or 50? If i saw some of these things I'm value betting on the smaller side but absent reads I'm def. value betting bigger here.

Fairly decent preflop result. We narrowed the field to HU (which is sometimes a real crapshoot whether that happens). We got a nice big SPR of 13 against a guy who is probably ABC straightforward, although we are OOP (not much we can do about that being in EP). So my plan postflop would be to bet/fold each street. I probably wouldn't bet too much on each street (noting that a PSB on flop/turn will leave us in a bad spot on the river with only a PSB left), so I'd probably start out small on early streets (say 1/2 - 2/3 PSB) leaving room for a bigger bet on the river. At least, that would be my plan before seeing the flop.

Next time include pot total on each street so we don't have to do the math ourselves.

I think the flop/turn bets are fine. They've left us with $367 behind in a $166 pot, so we've done a nice job of not committing ourselves. By the river this guys most likely hands are a slowplayed set or he has a Q (and is unlikely to fold it). I think I go 3/4 PSB on the river for good value, so $120ish.

Gifwebetmoreontheriver,nicehand,imoG

Definitely more on river -- didn't realize how big the pot was.

Is there any consideration given to the typical 1/3 drooler thinking in terms of absolute bet sizing as opposed to bet sizing relative to the pot? Perhaps I should've included this in the OP reads section, but it seemed to be prevalent at this table - there were tons of players betting insanely small amounts relative to the pot (e.g. value betting $30 into $130). The V in this hand was one of the majority who had no clue how to size correctly. So, while $120 or so is definitely the correct amount in a vacuum relative to the pot, it's still a large bet in absolute terms at a 1/3 table, and I did not know if a top pair hand would call that much. Again, I am open to the possibility of me being wrong and losing value in this hand, but I felt the absolute vs. relative sizing was a valid point of discussion.


Interesting question - why does the stack size sorting matter?

^^^^

That's fair enough, but in the end if he's got a Q (most likely a big one because he called a preflop raise with it), he's going to have a hard time folding it. Also, it's not for his whole stack, so he'll likely sigh call a biggish bet taking relief in that knowledge.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Are you making a lot of absolutely large but comparatively small bluffs to run people off of TP hands in large pots?

When people stack their chips in smaller denominations I assume they are broke. So I size my bets obv the smaller side for value, bigger for bluffs.

I am betting 95 on river. Other than that, NH.

I'd bet $90 or so on the river. I think we can go for a bit more thin value versus a Q.

NH.

Yes definitely +100 river bet. Any decent villain will view your river bet as a blocking bet and raise here unless he has AQ. will you call if he raise to 180, ie 120 more for you ? So bet more on river.

This is awesome sizing for online poker! People almost never let go of even second pair with that river sizing and we get away cheap when raised

Obviously with solid tells that this particular kid lets go of Q for 100+ river bet then fine (bet 90 in that case though) but you have to be super confident, also board is very dry but still, bet a tad bigger on turn anyways cuz once he calls flop he probably doesnt want to fold his Q on turn

This is awesome advice for online poker! But then again we WANT them to view it as a blocking bet and raise us....

lets be honest this isnt what were usually worried about in llsnl, keyword is decent lol thats too rare and if he is even close to having such capabilities he will stick out like a sore thumb and we shall be aware , also because of this fact, getting raised on river is a snap fold anyways regardless of our sizing OR his

V is loose-passive. What in that description gives you the impression this villain is "decent"?

If we get raised on the river, we are beat. He'll flat all his one-pair hands. We may value-own ourselves, but we're targeting the biggest part of his river range - a queen. There's zero chance a loose-passive villain is turning a queen into a bluff on the river.

I go closer to pot on every street.

+1

GcluelessNLnoobG

-1, imo

The SPR is 13, which means if we PSB each street, we've just played for stacks. I would definitely not want to play for stacks with this SPR, this is what makes setmining so profitable. Villain can just flop a set, and sit back in position on this dry board and watch us spew off a stack to him having gotten terrific implied odds of 28x preflop.

GimoG

100 river bet, he might value call. 60, we give him a chance to bluff us. People r talking as if llsnl players play consistent style. Imho, llsnl players are all over the place.

Most LLSNL players don't bluff enough. Even fewer passive LLSNLers bluff. What makes us think this player will bluff-raise a weak lead? If this villain raises, how certain are we that he is bluffing?

We need to go for fat value OTR. All this other stuff you're talking about is FPS.

Ironmikee,

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have seen a player bluff raise the river in 10 years or so of LLSNL, especially 1/3. It's just not a move in the overwhelming majority of 1/3 players' arsenal.

Who cares if he has a set? How often does that happen that we need to be pot controlling with KK in a live game? If he flopped one then it's w/e. More often than not he has some Q in his hand and can't let go. The extra few dollars on every street is for value. We are after all betting for value, aren't we?

And if not, then why aren't we checking to pot control? Don't get your logic. Seems very overly cautious.

PS i didn't say pot every street, i said -closer- to pot, meaning closer to pot than hero did in this hand. 3/4's usually.

Flop is fine, i'd make it $55-60 on the turn and ~$150ish into the ~$200ish pot on the river - hardly playing for stacks..

Don't see why we'd want to bet like $60 into that pot on the river.

I think it's more profitable. AQ, KQ, QJ, QK, QT etc are all bigger part of his range than flopped sets and therefore we earn more money by betting bigger because he's never letting a Q go.

Then think abt it and why dont u use it urself. If m the villain here, only hand i m calling the river is AQ for showdown value. Any Qx i m either folding or raising to 200. Would our hero call 120 more ? I doubt it.

but.......the point is.......you are not the villian here bro.....some loose passive llsnl guy is
dude you just dont get it


(if you WERE the villian and Ive seen your river blocking bet raising capabilities, my calling chips would be in the middle before your raising ones)